Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Whole Lot o'Sheehan Goin' On

BuzzFlash: Is it true as reported on Daily Kos that you have been warned you will be arrested on Thursday? How do you feel about going to jail? Would it be a first?

Cindy Sheehan: Yes. It would be the first time, and I am ready to go. The only way they will get me out of there is if he meets with me, [or] the end of August, or when I am arrested" . . . .

BuzzFlash: Why do you think Bush isn't meeting with you now, when he did in June, 2004?

Cindy Sheehan: In June my entire family was invited, along with 15 other families. I believe that back in June we were used as political tools. I believe he's not meeting with me now because he doesn't have enough courage to face someone who actually disagrees with him and would dare to call him on his lies . . . .

I am tired and my throat hurts from talking so much. We are confined to camping in a drainage ditch, we are using the bathroom in a camping potty, it is oppressively hot or pours down rain. But our spirits are great. And we know that no matter how hard we have it, the troops in Iraq and the Iraqi people have it even harder.

On Saturday, National Security Advisor Steven Hadley and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joe Hagin met her outside the ranch, listening to mothers’ concerns for about 45 minutes. Sheehan says she was disappointed.

"First of all, I didn't know who they were," she remarks. "They came out and introduced themselves and we talked, and I guess I was supposed to be very impressed and very intimidated."

"I told them, I don't want to be lied to, I want to meet with the president—that's an oxymoron—and I thanked them for coming out," she adds.

"At one point they said that George believes there are weapons of mass destruction," she continues, "and they said something else to me, and I said, I may be a grieving mother but I'm not stupid. I don't believe you even believe what you’re saying."

6.) Maureen Dowd, back in harness at the NYT, wonders why the President is so fucking stupid:

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers? . . . .

Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.

But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.

You will find extensive and frequently-updated coverage of Ms. Sheehan's vigil at the sites of our admirable colleagues Shakespeare's Sister and the Heretik.